ProZ.com, Inc.Reviews of proz.com

LAUGHABLY TERRIBLE SITE. Used to at least be helpful to a beginning translator. I have all kinds of complaints about Proz.com. First of all, Proz.com shows tremendous favoritism and defends “bad actors” all over the place. First of all, there are all these fellow members of Proz.com who are rude as can be. Usually older translators like Kim Metzger who are meaner than a snake in the forums to particularly younger translators new to the industry. Kim, for example, really isn’t a translator. He’s more like a troll who spends all day long on the website. There is no doubt whatsoever that you can find even thousands of examples in the forums of him being extremely insulting to fellow translators. If you try to defend yourself, then the owner Henry rushes to his defense and threatens YOU with expulsion. RIDICULOUS. I think there are many people who rarely come by anymore because they tired of all this crap. The moderators are usually the meanest of them all who need reined in themselves!!! Proz.com also defends bad agencies. If an agency complains about your work and doesn’t pay you in full, you aren’t allowed to leave a negative rating – which is absolutely ridiculous. Many agency owners are COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT and can’t speak English to save their lives! (Ironically, most of the people WHO WORK FOR PROZ.COM seem to speak very poor English themselves.) Why aren’t you just allowed to give your opinion (truthfully, of course) and allow the agency to respond if it wants to? Why all the censorship and brow-beating? Many of their rules are completely nonsensical and enforced even more nonsensically with lots of favoritism. For example, non-paying agencies are supposed to be banned after two negative entries. But some get very quickly banned even if their numbers are overall quite good, but then others have negative entry after negative entry after negative entry, but they haven’t been banned and are still even allowed to post jobs. ????? THE JOB BOARD IS COMPETELY WORTHLESS. I do specialized types of translations and used to get on average probably one job a week from the Job Board. These days, I average probably one job EVERY TWO YEARS. The Job Board has become the haven for sleazy agencies looking to scam translators or to get people to work for one-tenth of what any self-respecting translator from the West would work for. They also don’t update the Blue Board directory of agencies very much at all. Many links lead to empty pages or you get a notification from Avast not to proceed because it’s a risky likely scammer’s site. I don’t even bother to research my translations via the Kudoz term search. The searches seem to produce very bad results. Again, they are rarely updated. I have received notifications that entries involving myself were updated FIVE OR TEN YEARS LATER – well, I guess better late than never. DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY.

I am a freelance translators and have enriched my clientele by means of proz.com. I think that some of the other reviews are misleading. If someone is electrocuted due to one's negligence, it is not the fault of the electricity.

Despite its user base mainly made up of freelance translators, the site exploits this base in its bid for income, and arguably also makes the job market worse for them, by contributing to downward-sticky prices for established, professional translators in what is a race to the bottom. Don't be fooled -- they are on the side of outsourcers with paid accounts. Support tickets raised for outsourcers who have rejected your Blue Board WWA rating with lies (and substantiated with evidence to the contrary) will be closed with no action taken. In other words, the one thing that ProZ is possibly useful for these days -- the Blue Board -- has been grossly compromised. Won't name names here, but ask around. There are smaller, paid rating boards that don't ask for very much, which are much better and ethically managed, and which provide far more reliable insight into the trustworthiness of a potential business partner.

They show lots of racism and discrimination towards members from 3rd world countries, muslims, and members paying less annual fees and they recruit lots scammers... Also they have very strange rules, that work just fine for unreliable clients or scammers. Recently we faced non payment issues with few companies we met through proz, we still weren't allowed to report the matter on the blueboard record, and proz moderators are always taking side with those with better membership or from the same nationality, race or religion... They do not treat freelancers in the same manner. Very cheap customer service. Not trustworthy. Thank you

They help scammers and they only care about who pays them more, they are very racist. They do not provide good support.

I am a paying member and I do not receive offers by e-mail, having to look each time to see if there is any new work.

I've tried using Proz.com to find a translator. The website is horrendous, borderline unusable. Google 'User Experience Design'! It feels like you launched the website in 1999 then mindlessly added bits and pieces of functionality to it, then lost the blueprints half way through.

This might be a good website for a translator to start out with. It has some good free tools and resources but the jobs will go to the lowest offers and these can sometimes be very low, and expect there to be some scammers - clients and translators. There are some good guides and articles for the beginner. The forums\message boards appear to be managed by a small group of translators. Most discussions are full of sexual content and innuendo, and newcomers are bullied or attacked with racist jokes. "Merv the perv" and a few of the other administrators, (seemingly middle-aged men) seem to get their kicks out of writing seedy content. I'm not sure how this can be allowed on what is supposed to a website for professional translators. Join for the free resources and to get some experience.